1. Field
The following relates generally to wireless communication, and more specifically to improvements for error correction signaling employed for wireless communication.
2. Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, data, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., bandwidth and transmit power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems, and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems.
Generally, a wireless multiple-access communication system can simultaneously support communication for multiple wireless terminals. Each terminal communicates with one or more base stations via transmissions on the forward and reverse links. The forward link (or downlink) refers to the communication link from the base stations to the terminals, and the reverse link (or uplink) refers to the communication link from the terminals to the base stations. This communication link may be established via a single-in-single-out, multiple-in-signal-out or a multiple-in-multiple-out (MIMO) system.
Wireless communications can be subject to data loss based on many physical phenomenon, as well as processing errors and other circumstances. For instance, signal interference, thermal noise or other background noise, signal reflection, scattering, and so on, can cause problems for a wireless receiver attempting to properly receive a transmitted signal. In addition to the foregoing, signal decoding at the wireless receiver can also fail to demodulate or decode a subset of information conveyed via the transmitted signal. To correct these problems, error correction protocols can be employed to correct or avoid many known wireless communication errors. Examples can include employing decoding techniques that mitigate physical channel distortions, switching to less distorted physical channels, re-transmitting a subset of unreceived or improperly decoded information, negotiating reserved wireless resources with interfering transmitters, and so on, or suitable combinations thereof.
One technique for error correction in wireless communication involves repeat request signalling. According to this mechanism, a wireless transmitter schedules transmissions to be sent to a wireless receiver. The wireless receiver acknowledges properly received transmissions or sends a negative acknowledgment, or sends no data, for improperly received transmissions. In the case of improperly received transmissions, the wireless transmitter re-transmits a subset of data until an acknowledgment for that data is received. This error correction mechanism can help to improve overall accuracy of wireless communications, though inherent delays can result from multiple transmissions of data. A need exists, therefore, to improve accuracy in wireless communication while mitigating overhead or mitigating delay resulting from error correction techniques.